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DHAKA : Bangladesh's interim government is to privatise operations at the country's main port to free it from union control and improve efficiency after a series of crippling strikes, a port official said.
The port in the southeast city of Chittagong on the Bay of Bengal is crucial for Bangladesh's booming textiles trade and handles more than 90 percent of the country's 25 billion dollars worth of exports and imports.
But it has become a key battleground in political and worker disputes that have led to millions of dollars of losses and given it a reputation for unreliability among firms that ship to companies such as Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer.
The interim government has arrested a series of prominent politicians, some of whom had blocked the privatisation plan, and has made fixing Chittagong Port one of its priorities.
"For decades Chittagong Port has been held hostage by hostile unions and their political patrons. They would resist everything we wanted to do. But we can do things smoothly," said port authority finance chief Abul Kashem.
Eight of the port's top leaders have been detained as part of a wider anti-corruption crackdown, according to Kashem.
He said there had already been signs of improvement since the privatisation of a container terminal last week, after the country's military-backed government adopted the plan.
"We will just keep the role of a landlord while privatising all our operations and services. It will boost port efficiency. But it is not total privatisation," Kashem said at the weekend.
"Already there are signs of improvement in the container terminal. We have estimated that after handing over the container terminal we can now save some 10,000 dollars for handling every ship."
The port is one of the world's most inefficient, with an average turnaround time to unload and load containers of more than a week.
Authorities plan to gradually hand over jetties to private operators, while its biggest container terminal, which has a capacity to handle 500,000 containers, will be privatised in December, Kashem said.
Union officials were unavailable for comment, but Bangladesh business groups hailed the move.
"Every year we bleed hundreds of millions of dollars because of the man-made inefficiency at the port," said Mir Nasir Hossain, president of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry.
"The privatisation of the port has been our long-held demand. The interim government has finally made the right move and we think it will boost trade and enhance competitive advantages of our products."
Because of congestion at the port, importers have paid an extra 200-dollar tariff on each container since September, he said.
"It cost us 140 million dollars since the levy was imposed by the shipping companies," he added.
The privatisation comes amid sweeping political change in Bangladesh.
An interim government led by former central bank governor Fakhruddin Ahmed was installed after the president declared a state of emergency in January and cancelled polls scheduled for January 22.
Resistance from hostile unions and union-linked politicians prevented previous governments from privatising the operations.
But last week, security forces under orders from the government arrested the mayor of Chittagong and a main leader of the opposition Awami League, A.B.M. Mohiuddin Chowhdury, who had blocked port privatisation.
Chittagong handled 876,000 containers in 2006, up nearly 12 percent from 783,000 in 2005. During the past five years container growth averaged 15 percent annually.
Exports from Bangladesh rose 21.6 percent to a record 10.53 billion dollars in the year ended June 2006, powered by a record 24 percent rise in textile shipments.
- AFP/ir
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